Technical Analysis

Technical Analysis, what is it?

Consider this analogy.

Imagine you are vacationing in a foreign country where everything including the language, culture, climate, and food is new to you. On day 1, you do the regular touristy activities, and by evening you are very hungry. You want to end your day by having a great dinner. You ask around for a good restaurant and you are told about a nice food street which is close by. You decide to give it a try.

To your surprise, there are many vendors selling different varieties of food. Everything looks different and interesting. You are absolutely clueless as to what to eat for dinner. To add to your dilemma you cannot ask around as you do not know the local language. So given all this, how will you make a decision on what to eat?

Option 1: You visit a vendor, figure out what they are cooking/selling. Check on the ingredients used, cooking style, probably taste a bit and figure out if you actually like the food. You repeat this exercise across a few vendors, after which you would most likely end up eating at a place that satisfies you the most.

The advantage of this technique is that you know exactly what you are eating since you have researched it on your own. However, on the flip side, the methodology you adopted is not really scalable as there could be about 100 odd vendors, and with limited time at your disposal, you can probably cover about 4 or 5 vendors.  Hence there is a high probability that you could have missed the best-tasting food on the street!

Option 2: You just stand in a corner and observe all the vendors. You try and find a vendor who is attracting the maximum crowd. Once you find such a vendor you make a simple assumption -‘The vendor is attracting so many customers which means he must be making the best food!’ Based on your assumption and the crowd’s preference you decide to go to that particular vendor for your dinner. Chances are that you could be eating the best tasting food available on the street.

The advantage of this method is the scalability. You just need to spot the vendor with the maximum number of customers and bet on the fact that the food is good based on the crowd’s preference. However, on the flip side, the crowd need not always be right.

If you could recognize, option 1 is very similar to Fundamental Analysis where you research about a few companies thoroughly. We will explore the Fundamental Analysis in greater detail in the next module.

Option 2 is very similar to Technical Analysis where one scans for opportunities based on the current trend aka the preference of the market.

Technical Analysis is a research technique to identify trading opportunities in the market based on the actions of market participants. The actions of market participants can be visualized by means of a stock chart. Over time, patterns are formed within these charts and each pattern conveys a certain message. The job of a technical analyst is to identify these patterns and develop a point of view.

Like any research technique, technical analysis stands on a bunch of assumptions. As a practitioner of technical analysis, you need to trade the markets keeping these assumptions in perspective. Of course we will understand these assumptions in detail as we proceed along.

Also, at this point, it makes sense to throw some light on a matter concerning FA and TA. Often people get into the argument contending a particular research technique is a better approach to market. However, in reality, there is no such thing as the best research approach. Every research method has its own merits and demerits. It would be futile to spend time comparing TA and FA in order to figure out which is a better approach.

Both techniques are different and not comparable. In fact, a prudent trader would spend time educating himself on both the techniques so that he can identify great trading or investing opportunities.